It was a big little lie this whole time.
Alexander Skarsgård is setting the record straight on how his last name is really pronounced.
After the actor’s dad Stellan Skarsgård, 73, revealed on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” that their Swedish surname is often mispronounced, Alexander, 48, explained to the host, 61, how it’s meant to be said.
“He said we’re mispronouncing the name. It’s ‘Skarsgourd,’ is that how you say it?” Stephen asked the “Infinity pool” star on Tuesday’s episode of the late-night show.
“Exactly.” Alexander replied. “That little umlaut is an ‘oua’ [sound], it’s not an ‘a.’ It’s ‘Skarsgourd.’”
In 2016, the men poked fun at Alexander’s Swedish surname, as they put on a hilarious skit where the pair over pronounced the “ar” sound in Skarsgård.
This isn’t the first time a star has come on Colbert’s show to drop a bomb about their name.
Daniel Craig revealed in December that the show’s host has never said his name right in all six times he’s appeared on the program.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” the “Queen” star, 57, expressed at the time. He then noted his name is pronounced with an ‘ay’ sound, stating: “[It’s] Daniel Cr-ayg.”
“I hear the difference,” Stephen responded. “That is subtle, and I apologize. Daniel Cregg, f–k that guy. It’s Daniel Cr-ayg. I’m so sorry, please accept my apology.”
“It’s fine. Whatever,” the “James Bond” alum said back.
During Alexander’s latest appearance, he also touched on how his father walked around the house naked while he was growing up.
“Not so much as a child, as a teenager, a bit more,” confessed the “Murderbot” star. “Well, he wasn’t a fan of clothes. I noticed that he was wearing clothes when he was on your show. That made me very proud. He wouldn’t wear clothes at home, really.”
As for their family — which includes brothers Gustaf, Sam, Bill, Valter, Ossian and Kolbjörn, and sister Eija — the origin of Skarsgård was explained in 2018.
outside “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” studios. Darla Khazei/INSTARimages
Bill, 34, made a YouTube video detailing how his family took on the name Skarsgård in the mid-20th century. At the time, the Swedish government encouraged people to change their last names if they were too similar to other Swedish names.
“Not a lot of people outside of Sweden know this, but we had a problem in sort of the ’40s and the ’50s that there was too many Nilssons, and Anderssons, and Johanssons in the country, so it’s really hard to distinguish one Nilsson to another Nilsson,” Bill stated.
“The government sort of encouraged people to come up with their own last names. So my family used to be Nilsson and then my grandfather and his brothers were encouraged to change their names, and they changed them to Skarsgård.”
Alexander got his start in the US in the 2001 comedy “Zoolander.”
“The fact that we shot it driving this Jeep down Broadway [in Manhattan], cutting through traffic, singing the Wham! song…. it was all very surreal,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2022.
Alexander was only 25 at the time and was in a play in Stockholm when he decided to accompany his dad on a business trip to Los Angeles.
“It was my first audition,” he reflected. “So I couldn’t quite believe that two weeks later I was in New York shooting that scene with Ben Stiller. And obviously, the infamous gasoline fight was a lot of fun.”
